you have to promise not to tell anyone...

... was the condition placed upon me by P, as I tucked him into his cot for naptime. But I have a Transformer that fits in my room and in my house and it/he sleeps next to me. But he's invisible. He's pretend. If you tell anyone, I'll be very mad at you.

Unbidden, he began to tell me his story of transformers and power rangers... I think tucking the 4s and 5s (we sort the kids by age) into their cots for naptime is one of my favorite things about working at the preschool (Changing soiled undergarments or diapers is definitely NOT). I never thought I would, but I have recently employed the phrase "snug as a bug in a rug" and that makes them laugh. On Thursdays, life is particularly exciting as the 4s and 5s have the Prize Box and get various penny toys or candy to reward their good behavior. For a while, spider rings were very popular. Lollypops were today's hot item. They talk about their prizes with such excitement that it makes me want to go home and have my own gummy snake or red tootsie roll pop (the color is very important).

Instead, I sit here eating sub-standard edamame purchased from my grocery store here in Tennessee. It was the only edamame they had. Apparently, there's not much demand for them here. Sad day.

HWotD

Today I've had the day off from work at the preschool and have taken the opportunity to clean the house a bit, catch up with laundry, and make DH's favorite homemade spaghetti recipe. After all that work, I want to pat myself on the back (domestic goddess would NOT be one of my attributes).

Today's word is maika'i
maika'i - good, fine, all right, also good-looking, of good health, righteousness
"my-kigh-ee" and put a pause between the 2nd and 3rd syllables.

Pehea 'oe? Maika'i au. How are you? I am good.
Maika'i! Good job!

HWotD

Today's word is hana.

hana - work, labor, job, duty, function, procedure, process
"hah-nah"

Combine hana with a word from a few days ago, pau (meaning finish, complete), and you have pau hana. Pau hana means finish work. Restaurants and bars offer pau hana specials, which equate to happy hours.

Mau ke aloha, no Hawai`i

Check out a few of our pictures over on Amy's blog!

Good news - my hula halau here had been doing songs like the Hukilau (aka the song they teach you at a tourist luau - a good song, but still not quite Paoakalani), but now we're doing Ka Uluwehi O Ke Kai and I love it!! It brings me back to the days wandering around the Big Island, listening to KAPA!

I LOVE that song (and have for a while, but haven't known what its name was). Here's a video with the song in the background. Plus you can watch (or choose not to watch but still listen to the song) some octopi.



Hawaiian Word of the day is:

Pu'u = bump or mound ranging from pimple to heap, pile, bulge, hill
"Pooh-ooh"

The current volcanic eruption on the Island of Hawai'i is stemming from Pu'u 'o'o ("pooh-ooh, oh-oh") which could mean hill of the 'o'o bird, or have something to do with Pele's walking stick (read the Wikipedia article for more).

You can combine pu'u with maka, meaning "eye" in this case, and it becomes makapu'u bulging eye or hill point. I love the lighthouse at Makapu'u on O'ahu.

HWotD

I think this Hawaiian word is one of my favorites - it just has so many uses!

puka - hole, opening, door, gate, entrance, zero (as in the number)
other meanings- to graduate, to pass through, to emerge, to say, to gain or to win, trap, snare, and almost.

"pooh-kah"

My phone number is five-five-five-puka-eight-puka-puka (555-0800).
Put the plant in the puka.

Thanksgiving Break!

We had a great Thanksgiving break. We got to see a lot of friends (well, Erinn and I never met up - sorry!) and family. We went to Chuck E. Cheese, we played Apples to Apples, and DH supposedly even won a game of Settlers of Catan. It was really good to connect with family and spend some good time with Calli and Mari.


Hard to believe, but the fam convinced me to go bowling, and I actually liked it! I stink, but that's ok! It was good to have a smoke-free bowling experience, so my score was the only smelly thing coming out of the alley!

We had some family pictures taken by the lovely Amy Carroll, and here's one we snapped ourselves on the way out. I can't wait to see her pics!



The secret's out of the bag. No longer is this town under cover!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Miscellaneous catch-up

DH and I have had some exciting times lately - like reaching the 100,000 mile -mark on the XTerra.
DH and I at a Vanderbilt/Kentucky football game. Vanderbilt lost.

Notice how most of the fans are dressed in blue (the game was against Kentucky) and that you can see the Nashville "Parthenon" from Vandy Stadium... I guess Nashvillians like to boast that "their" Parthenon is still intact. Whatever.

And just for reference, the Greek Parthenon as we saw it about 4 months ago.

This was on our drive, somewhere in the Midwest. Look at the line underneath "Daisy Thrift Store" - let's hope they were trying to be funny. What exactly are they selling?


My friends Dave, Jen, and baby Anna. Anna was born on my birthday... well, forescore and a few years after me.

I got my hair cut today - and as my sister says, I can no longer pull off the "Eve in the garden" look. Too bad.

HWotD

Today's Hawaiian Word is:

mahalo = thank you
"mah-hah-low"

I choose the word of the day by what Hawaiian word pops into my head at the time, and this one very appropriately was the first word I thought of :)

I heard a great story about this word from the tour guide Ku'ulei who took us from one part of Pearl Harbor to the other part where the USS Missouri is. She was very entertaining and told us this story about one of the most famous Hawaiian words.

Apparently back in the day when Hawaii was becoming a famous tourist destination, the Hawaiian culture gurus decided to try to teach the tourists a little bit of Hawaiian and encourage them to clean up after themselves. They decided that a good way to promote both objectives would be to put the word "mahalo" on garbage cans. Legend has it that the tourists thought the meaning of the word to be trash instead of thank you. The same tourists, when thanked by their taxi drivers, or waitresses, or beach boy, or local Hawaiian, thought the Hawaiian was saying trash.

Anyway, aloha and mahalo have very significant meanings in Hawaiian, as described in this article.

Fall fun

I have the most adorable nieces. EVER.

You need evidence?

Exhibit 1:
Exhibit 2:


(poor DH didn't realize that my sister was feeding the girls leaves until he saw the video!)


Exhibit 3:

From the mouths of babes...

Dear husband (DH) and I went out for dinner with some friends of his from grad school. They brought along their 6-year-old daughter. We asked her questions about her favorite subject in school (centers, where she can choose to bake), her favorite book (any Dr. Seuss book), and then about her pets. She sighed, and said she had a story to tell us about her pets. Dh and I readied ourselves for the drawn-out tale of a six year old. Here's what she said. She has a cat and some fish. Well, make that had some fish. Apparently, the cat ate the fish. She said, "It is a short story."

Life as a preschool teacher...

Story 1

So, the other day, G comes up to me holding a ball
me -Hey G, what's going on?
G - T won't share the ball with me.
me - What ball?
G - This ball.
me - Um, it looks like he's sharing because you have it.
G - Well, I took it from him.

Story 2
Girl comes up to me holding a doll.
me - Oh, that's a nice baby you have there.
girl - Yes, she's sick though.
me - Really?
girl - Yes, she has a fever.
me - I'm sorry. How did she get sick?
girl - She ate too much cheese.

Clearly, cheese is the beginning of all sicknesses.

Word of the Day

pau - finished, done, completed and sometimes very
"pow"

Are you pau with your dinner?

And know that each - and ' are very important in Hawaiian! Pau means finished, but pa'u is soot or inky or hard labor. Pāʻū is a skirt used in horseback riding or for hula, among other things.

Hotwings

One of DH's favorite meals is chicken wings with hot sauce. He LOVES them. There's a restaurant in Florida that offers such great ones that we go there twice every time we go down to Florida to see DH's parents. DH also has a recipe he likes to make at home that involves frying chicken strips and then dousing them with his homemade hot sauce. This, I have determined, when coupled with massive amounts of bleu cheese, is probably not the healthiest thing we've ever eaten. I found this new recipe and tried it the other night.

Everyday Food's chicken tenders with creamy honey mustard. Thanks Martha.

DH was horrified at the idea I would put Rice Krispies on his chicken, but he left to grab a few last minute ingredients and I snuck the required amount into the food processor. I also added a bit of yellow cornmeal.

Holy cow, they were great! DH made his normal hot sauce (based on Crystal and a few other ingredients) and we skipped the creamy honey mustard, but it probably would be great with honey mustard. For being baked, these came out absolutely spectacular. I liked them almost as much as our normal fried "wings".

HWotD

Today's word is akamai

Akamai - smart, clever, expert
"ah-kah-my"

I love that Hawaiian words often can take different word forms - sometimes it can be used as an adjective, others as a noun - it's just so wonderful!